The Healing Reawakening: Reclaiming Our Lost Inheritance

Crime.

INTRODUCTION

I want to write as simply as possible, stating my point clearly in order to help the Church return to an essential part of the life that Jesus Christ came to give us.

The point is simply this: Jesus came to bring us healing (and deliverance) on every level of our being—physical, emotional and spiritual—through the power of the Holy Spirit. As Peter summed up Christ’s ministry: God had anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and because God was with him, Jesus went about doing good and curing all who had fallen into the power of the devil (Acts 10:38, JB ).

This teaching is central to the Gospel; it is not a side issue. But over the centuries a lively belief in healing prayer was taken away, not only by the enemies of Christianity, but, surprisingly, by Christians themselves. We are not dealing with villains here but good, even holy leaders who nearly killed Christian healing; the monks, for instance, fled to the desert (ca. A.D. 400) to escape the sinful cities and then refused, in the name of humility, to pray for the sick.

As a result, by the opening of the twentieth century healing prayer had largely disappeared from the mainline historic Church. This has been a tragic loss: The full expression of Jesus’ main ministry has, by and large, remained lost to the traditional centers of Christianity. That is a bold statement, but it needs to be set out in plain view, in its stark outline, so we can come to realize that we have accepted the traditions of men rather than the authentic traditions of Christianity. You may be surprised, perhaps even angered, at what this book contains. All I ask is that you read with an open mind, an open heart and an open spirit.

See if it’s not true.

In stating my case—which I believe is the case of the Gospel—I will not write with a multitude of subtle distinctions and a profusion of scholarly references. The main points need to stand out boldly so that all of us in the Body of Christ can recapture His vision and begin to work together toward a serious renewal of Christian life.

If you disagree with this or that point, fine. But if the main sweep of this book is true, we need to repent—individually and as a Church—and then change our lives and try to live according to Jesus’ original vision.

1

THE NEARLY PERFECT CRIME

They will keep up the outward appearance of religion but will have rejected the inner power of it.

2 Timothy 3:5, JB

It was a nearly perfect crime.

You can see the body lying there, almost cold, the heart barely pumping. This dying body once kept Christianity alive. What we see lying there, scarcely moving, is Christian prayer for healing.

It is like the lingering death of the emperor Napoleon, in exile on the Isle of Elba. According to the story, the English paid his servant to put a pinch of arsenic in Napoleon’s wine every evening. Day by day he wasted away until he finally died. We can compare the near-death of Christian healing to Napoleon’s sad decline, except that its decline was even more gradual.

Century by century its life was weakened; by 1900 only certain parts of the Church’s healing ministry were still alive and moving. Granted, something so central to Christianity could never completely die; we can rejoice that Christians today in different parts of the world are awakening to the glorious vision that Jesus had for His Church. But, amazingly, most of the body lies still and unresponsive to the powerful encounters of the Spirit that are sweeping into these nontraditional meetings of believers. So stealthily did this poisoning happen that most churchgoers did not even realize that anything was wrong. They came to think of their moribund state as normal.

When you think about it, this near-destruction of divine healing is an extraordinary mystery, because miraculous healing—with its twin, the casting out of evil spirits—lay at the very heart of Jesus Christ’s mission. For the first four hundred years of Church history Christians expected healing to take place when they prayed! How is it possible that something so central to the Gospel almost died out?

The mystery is compounded when we discover that the enemies were not outsiders or heretics, but Christians themselves. It is as if Christians put a pinch of arsenic into their own wine day after day and then drank it. Well-meaning Christians—leaders and theologians—made prayer for healing a side issue. In weakening this central teaching of the Gospel, they unwittingly opened themselves to the influence of paganism, Platonism, Stoicism and Gnosticism.

Ironically, these devout Christians thought they were acting as servants of truth and could not see that they were harming their own cause. It reminds us of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day who were convinced they were doing the right thing in handing Jesus over to die upon a cross: It was expedient, they said (John 18:14, KJV ).

It is as if Satan called together a council of the subtlest and most clever demons and asked, How can we rob Christians of the very life that Jesus came to give them? How can we encourage them to build monuments to their past glory, all the while sucking the life out of today’s Church? I don’t care how long it takes. We have already succeeded in killing the Christ; we hung Him up naked outside His beloved city and pierced His heart. Now it’s time to finish the job and take the heart out of His other Body, the Church.

The Church’s original healing ministry was so strong and vital, so clearly a part of the Gospel, that the crime could not take place all at once. It took time—nearly two thousand years. Still the enemies of healing succeeded so well that by 1970 an accepted spiritual author could claim that miracles are merely a holdover from the age of pre-scientific explanation, an anachronism which persists only in those moldering ivory towers which continue to exist.[1]

Notice I have mentioned that the crime was not perfect—only nearly perfect. There was still enough belief among the common people that even centuries of trying by spiritual leaders and authorities could not squelch it. In fact, in the past hundred years we have seen an amazing resurrection of the healing ministry—generally among the ordinary people—and later we will talk about that. But mostly, in the established churches healing has become a lost gift. And not only lost, but ridiculed: Faith healer has become a term of reproach.

As a result, millions of suffering Christians—and nonbelievers as well—who could have been healed remained sick, and many have died before their time. St. Paul did not hesitate to say that many Christians were weak or had even died because they did not recognize the Body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 11:30). The victims are real. You may know this all too well. Perhaps you are suffering from a sickness from which you could be healed if only you had better understanding about healing prayer.

In a fascinating turn of events, science has pointed a light on the Church’s loss of vision: Several medical case studies have shown that prayer helps in the healing process. Larry Dossey, M.D., makes an interesting observation: Will we reach a point where physicians who ignore prayer will be judged guilty of malpractice?[2] If a medical doctor can talk about suing his fellow physicians, what might we say about priests and ministers who do not pray for healing when the Gospel is their territory, as it were? Are they not also guilty of malpractice, not for what they do, but—like the doctors—for what they fail to do?

As I mentioned earlier, the work of casting out evil spirits is always partner to prayers for healing. Over the centuries this ministry of deliverance[3] has also been neglected and scorned until it has nearly died out as well. Heads turned when the chief exorcist of Rome, Father Gabriele Amorth, was bold enough to write:

I am convinced that allowing the ministry of exorcism to die is an unforgiveable deficiency to be laid squarely at the door of bishops. Every diocese should have at least one exorcist at the cathedral, and every large parish and sanctuary should have one as well. Today the exorcist is seen as a rarity, almost impossible to find. . . . I do not hesitate to repeat what I have written elsewhere: if a bishop, when faced with a valid request for an exorcism—I am not talking about the request of some demented per son—does not address the problem, either personally or by delegating the task to a qualified priest, he is guilty of a most serious sin of omission.[4]

How is it possible that this partnership of healing and deliverance, this central mission of Christianity aside from preaching, almost disappeared? On the other hand, it is just as amazing that the healing ministry survived as strongly as it did, considering how, century after century, powerful forces were at work to engineer its demise.

This is the mystery we will investigate. It is an incredible, fascinating story and one that must be told for the health of the Body because these disabling elements are still among us. I believe that Jesus desires with all His heart for His saving love, revealed through healing and deliverance, to return to His people full force.

2

THERE HAS TO BE MORE!

Back in the 1960s, when I was a young Catholic priest, one of the things that discouraged me was trying to give spiritual direction to a number of sincere, committed Christians who were suffering from a number of difficult personal problems. Some were severely depressed, some struggled with addictions, some erupted with irrational anger. Like so many other priests and ministers, I encouraged them not to lose heart but to keep on trying. My suggestions mostly had to do with strengthening their willpower to conquer their destructive inclinations. Being inventive, I tried to develop creative methods of coping. Sometimes these people got better but, sadly, the most deeply wounded did well just to hang on to life.

A number of these individuals were actively suicidal. They told me about the methods they planned to use to end their lives, such as overdosing on pills, if their emotional pain grew too strong. Now, I was not trying to help these hurting souls by myself; I made referrals to connect them with mental health counselors and several came to me because their psychiatrist had suggested me as a spiritual director.

Most of my training in spirituality had concentrated on repenting of sin, on regaining a positive vision of God’s love and on strengthening willpower. But I quickly discovered the limits of human willpower, although I always added, You need God’s grace to help you.

So what was the answer? It was hard enough for suffering people to handle their pain on the human level, but on the spiritual level what advice was I supposed to give? Were some people so badly wounded by their past experiences (such as repeated incest by their fathers) that they were truly hopeless? Some hated life. They hated themselves and they suspected that God hated them, too. They asked me hard questions: Do you really think God would condemn me if I killed myself? You know my past and that there’s nothing I can do to change it. I’ve seen a psychiatrist for years now and I’m still not better. Do you really believe anything will ever change? I’m already fifty years old and, from now on, it’s all going downhill. Do you really think I’ll ever get better?

In all honesty I couldn’t say yes. If they had not gotten better from their psychiatric treatments, from their medications, from their electric-shock therapy, what else could I offer them? Was it true that a large group of people out there were spiritually hopeless? Could they never be happy? Was I just wasting my time?

One woman who came to see me said, "I’m not Marianne[1] who has a disease, but I’m a disease named Marianne." How do you even begin to deal with something like that? (I repeat that these people were already receiving professional mental and medical help.)

About this time several other priests on our faculty (I was teaching in our Dominican seminary in Dubuque, Iowa) started questioning me about all the time I spent holding hands with a bunch of nuts (as one teaching colleague described it). I was being called to the phone constantly to help with the needs of my counselees and it was becoming a nuisance. The regent of studies warned me that all of this time spent with troubled human beings was distracting me from the time I should be spending preparing for class and working with our seminarians. I knew he was right.

But I also knew that just an hour’s visit every two weeks seemed to be enough to keep a suicidal person alive. At one point I had to leave Dubuque for two weeks and, while I was away, two of my counselees attempted suicide. Spending time with these hurting people seemed to give them just enough attention to help them want to live. How could I tell them, I’m not going to see you any more?

Aside from the personal dilemma I was facing, I could not escape the fact that the problem was larger in scope. The big question was directed not only to me as an individual but also to the larger Christian community, to the Church. Are we meant to work only with the well adjusted? That just didn’t seem right.

The best answer most of the Church had for the very real question of suffering and pain—Job’s question—was that it is an ordinary part of human life, which is certainly true. If suffering is unavoidable, then, we should help one another endure our pain, our cross, with courage and patience in this life, and we will be rewarded in the next life. Our community edited a journal on spirituality, Cross and Crown, whose very title illustrated the prevalence of this teaching: If you endure your suffering in union with the suffering of Jesus, you will receive a crown in heaven.

Now, I believe this is largely true; there is such a thing as redemptive suffering, and we will not escape suffering in this life. But at the same time many people, including many devoted Christians, are enduring the kind of sickness—especially emotional sickness—that leads them to despair. Their pain is not proving to be redemptive.

This is why I heard desperation in the voices of my counselees. They were asking questions that I think any honest person would also ask: "Where is God in all this? Does He really love me? I only have proof that He doesn’t love me—my entire life shows that He doesn’t love me. Maybe He loves you but I’m damaged beyond repair."

I remember teaching at a retreat conference once where I asked those in attendance to draw pictures representing what they felt about themselves. One woman drew a picture of herself as a blind eagle. Another pictured herself as a skunk. Where do you go from there? What was the Christian answer? For them repentance and willpower were not enough.

Thus I was reluctant, in spite of the skepticism of some of my fellow teachers, to give up the one thing I had discovered that helped: Really caring about these hurting people seemed to enable them to survive. Many others were making the same discovery. It certainly didn’t cure their sufferings but it helped.

Yet here again I had problems. A major one, of course, was keeping appropriate distance from those under my spiritual care—and not only physical distance but emotional distance. All professional and spiritual counselors are taught, of course, to remain alert to the emotional bonding issues known as transference and counter-transference. We in the priesthood were trained to stay detached, while remaining kind. Then, after listening, we were to offer some practical advice. It was as if the mind alone was to be engaged and that seemed to make good sense. Emotions only got in the way and clouded one’s judgment.

The only problem was that if you really cared about a person, he or she would likely become attached to you, especially if the person had been deeply rejected and wounded in life. The fact that someone cared even a little became greatly magnified. Several of my counselees told me that the only reason they had not committed suicide during the previous week was because they didn’t want to hurt or sadden me.

So, while maintaining appropriate boundaries, I gradually came to realize that the love and concern I showed them was more healing than any advice I could give. In other words, the emotional part of any spiritual direction I had to offer was probably more important than any advice my mind could generate. You just cannot separate the mind and the heart.

Nor did they seem to be getting help anywhere else. Even expensive psychiatric sessions had their limits.

So I continued to wonder how all this fit into Christianity. Were there vast numbers of people who, as Thoreau observed, were doomed to live their lives in quiet desperation? That did not seem to fit the Gospel. Were we simply destined to be chaplains to the well adjusted?

Then I read a revolutionary book by a psychiatrist named William Glasser, who disagreed strongly with Freud’s detached approach: "Well-meaning advice always fails—patients can’t straighten up and fly right when someone points out reality to them when there is not sufficient involvement. . . . Psychiatry must be concerned with two basic psychological needs: the need to love and be loved and the need to feel that we are worthwhile to ourselves and to others."[2] He went on to explain his discovery that he could not really help people unless he became involved in their lives.

Now, this was exactly what I was finding. But it created huge practical problems for me. It might be fine for professional counselors to spend large amounts of time with a few clients, but that was not what I was called to do. Nor did I have the training. And yet it became clearer and clearer that most people in this world were crying out for compassion, and they were dying spiritually and emotionally because they did not receive it in a healthy way.

It is a psychological law that we need to be loved into being. Similarly, Jesus’ great command in the Gospel is that we are supposed to love each other as He has loved us. Why wasn’t it happening? What was missing? What was the answer?

There had to be more to Christianity than what I had so far discovered.

What that more was I would only learn many years later.

3

OUR LONG LOST INHERITANCE

As we investigate the heart of the Christian message and how we have lost a large part of it, I think the best way to start is at the beginning, with God’s original plan. We will remain forever in the dark if we do not understand why God sent His Son to be Savior of the world. Why did Jesus come among us in the flesh? He came because we had lost our inheritance and He intended to restore it.

What inheritance did we lose? The answer to this question actually predates Jesus’ earthly life and ministry. Let’s begin then with three key teachings from Scripture.

1. God’s Creation Is Good

The first great teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, gives us God’s view of His creation: In the beginning God created everything that exists and He saw that it was good (see Genesis 1:1–30). And, taken in its totality, the universe was very good (see verse 31).

The initial creation was marvelously good! All human beings, represented by Adam and Eve, were part of this wonderful creation and were meant to be specially blessed. This Hebrew teaching ran counter to the beliefs of many pagan religions; they emphasized that creation was evil and that the gods of evil were equal to the good God and needed to be appeased and worshiped.

2. The Human Race Falls into Sin

The second great teaching is that there has been a Fall, and that Satan helped cause it (see Genesis 3:1–24). In whatever way Christians understand the story of the Fall, whether we view it literally or allegorically, the basic point is that, through pride, the human race sinned and fell from fellowship with its Creator. The disastrous consequence was that evil came into the world and now influences everything in it. Because of the Fall, every human being still experiences a radical wounding.

To the woman he said, I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.

To Adam he said, Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

Genesis 3:16–19

Just as the Creation was fully good, the Fall was fully catastrophic—and very, very real. You may be aware of a disagreement in Christian tradition on the depth of our Fall. Roman Catholicism, for instance, holds that humans are badly wounded while Calvinism maintains that we are totally corrupt. Whatever